Helix, "Heavy Metal Love"

Helix Comes to Frogtown  

THE VIDEO Helix, "Heavy Metal Love," No Rest for the Wicked, 1983, EMI 

SAMPLE LYRIC "Heavy metal luh-uve / she's my heavy metal luh-uve" [Just say whatever you want, then say this next] 

THE VERDICT If you get the title of this post right away, you rule. If you don't, allow me to explain the connection. 

The brawny blond in this video is none other than Sandahl Bergman, the female lead in the 1988 "Rowdy" Roddy Piper vehicle Hell Comes to Frogtown. If you haven't seen this movie, you must. True, it was Piper who led me to watch it, but Bergman's intriguing looks — sort of like a poor man's Angela from Who's the Boss? — and astonishing dance moves really steal the show. 

Also stealing the show: Frog makeup, trying to figure out where in California the movie was shot, the very homemade costumes, and the fact that Roddy Piper's mission is to impregnate a bunch of women in brightly-colored negligees in order to help the human species repopulate (now that's a Hot Rod!). Do we get a lot of close-ups of his crotch encased in a weird metal unit? Why yes, we do. Many times, in fact. 

Seriously, if you like bad sci-fi, or even if you just like heavy metal videos that look like bad sci-fi, this is a movie for you. There's not any metal, but there's lots of homemade props, post-apocalyptic landscapes, and yes, brief nudity. 

Anywayyy, attempting to research the folks in Hell Comes to Frogtown led me to Bergman, which led me to this particular Helix video. I can't figure out what's going on in this one, but honestly, try to figure out what's going on in any of them. 

"Heavy Metal Love" definitely isn't helped by the unbelievably poor lighting. Many metal videos are badly lit, but this one is badly lit even by metal video standards. This video predates the era of spotlight overload, but most of the light here appears to be coming from a lit-up Helix logo. There's so much fog going on it almost feels like the camera that shot this has glaucoma. 

Helix appear to be playing in a vacant lot with like, apartment buildings being built on either side of it (this is my best guess). Something about it being low-budget, or maybe Canadian, or vaguely sci-fi is really giving me a serious Mystery Science Theater 3000 vibe (I know, something I often get). I'm thinking here of one in particular that's not coming to me, but something like Warrior of the Lost World or City Limits.

 

Most of this video is Helix just playing the song, not even really moving around, shot from just one camera (if that's not a signal of a low budget, I don't know what is). 

But we also see a very muscular and oily Ms. Bergman standing in a poorly lit area, flexing and like, bending things. Let's just say it's no dance of the three snakes, but it'll have to do. Actually, it's kind of like the "Manhunt" dance from Flashdance in costume, attitude, and execution. She's got all these chains and tools and stuff in there with her, but thanks to all the fog and the dim lighting I can't really tell what she's doing with it. 

Oh my gosh. Okay. Apparently, she is building a dude in there. I'm not kidding. It looks like a golem (as opposed to Gollum — I've neither read nor seen any Lord of the Rings, but I still feel like this is an important clarification to make). I mean it's like a giant gray dude who looks like he's made of metal or clay or something, breathing out steam like a freakin' dragon. 

So let me get this straight: This ripped, oily, mulleted woman, who is bending metal rods in a chain-filled foggy room is so uninterested in Helix that she decides to just DIY it? Weird. 

I mean the song is all "she's my heavy metal love," implying Bergman is said love, but it looks like she's built herself her own love. Out of heavy metals. Literally. 

The end of this video features much jumping around by lead singer Brian Vollmer, who to this point had been constrained by just having to stand around and make crazy faces at the camera. He's no Diamond Dave, but what can you do. 

The video then ends, having totally not resolved what's going on with Bergman and the metal guy, with the weird goggled dude from the beginning and that lit-up Helix sign again. He reminds me of Randee of the Redwoods, who coincidentally back in the day I thought was David Lee Roth (what can I say, I was a little kid!). 

P.S.: I know, this post is so short, and I actually have a backlog of requests right now, but I am uncharacteristically working last-minute rather than weeks in advance, and decided it was smarter to do what I can than to (gasp!) miss a week. I promise to be back on top of blogging soon!

P.P.S. from 2020: This video isn't on YouTube, so this awkwardly framed Vimeo is gonna have to cut it.

Ratt, "You Think You're Tough"

The Leftovers  

THE VIDEO Ratt, "You Think You're Tough," Ratt [EP], 1983, Atlantic 

SAMPLE LYRIC: "You think you're tough! / harder than stone / you think you're tough! / your talk's gettin' old" 

THE VERDICT: Pull out your microwave and get ready to do some reheating, 'cause this video is seriously the leftovers — bits and pieces of all the other things Ratt has done to date (the video's from 1985). Sure, the result is pretty yummy, but for the most part, this isn't stuff that's that new! 

The bits and pieces of this video are held together with a framing device of Stephen Pearcy driving around in a dark red Rolls Royce convertible with a TV in it. I love how cars with TVs in them always feel so 80s — the TV is like the televisual equivalent of a Zack Morris phone. Stephen seems to control the TV via a keypad next to it that looks like a calculator. He also has what appears to be just a regular phone that's been installed in a car. It doesn't actually look like a car phone, I mean the thing is white! 

Anyway, Stephen turns on his little TV to Warren DeMartini's solo from "Round and Round," where he falls through the ceiling onto the dining table. We actually hear the song play too, which I like. It's a common device in videos — Poison especially do it a lot on their first album. Sort of like, "Remember? We're the guys who did 'Round and Round.'" 

He then clicks to "Wanted Man." Then suddenly the TV goes to static, and in the first of many cameos, it's Ozzy! Screaming at the camera with a white rat on his shoulder. You know, of course.

 

The Ozzy bit transitions into some of the only footage that is 100% original to this video, of the guys playing around backstage. I looove this kind of stuff. Like as much as I know it's contrived, Stephen dancing around and squirting toothpaste in the air is almost just like, too much joy for me. 

We also get to go behind the scenes at a Ratt photo shoot. Warren... oh Warren. I want to be like "Smoking's bad kids" (and it is, I don't smoke, and I don't want you to think I do) but damn does he make it look good. 

We also get cameo #2 as Tommy Lee shows up and takes some pics with the boys. There's also on-stage stuff mixed in, but most of it is very generic footage — i.e., Ratt aren't necessarily doing this song. Lots of just like, rushing around, scarf swinging, and guitar jabbing. Stephen may not be fifty in this video, but he sure likes to stretch and kick. 

They also do this not-very-special special effect that I'm not even sure how to describe. It's as if they've taken the film, photocopied it, then painted it in with just a few bright colors in sort for sort of a poor man's Warhol. 

Stephen drives around LA, spotting a Marilyn Monroe look-alike outside Grauman's Chinese Theatre. Okay, well, I use the term "lookalike" loosely here. He sees a blonde in a white dress, how 'bout that. She blows him a kiss and waves, and he does his patented Stephen Pearcy finger-point-plus-duck-face move. In case we don't get it, there's also a clip of Marilyn Monroe's hand and heel-prints in the cement outside. 

 

Ahh!! Now Warren (wearing the world's ugliest yellow windbreaker) is calling Stephen on his car phone!! And somehow, even though Warren is calling from a payphone, his image appears on Stephen's car TV. It's like the world's crappiest Skype session, minus computer technology. In other news, Stephen's giant white car phone continues to amuse. 

Also, I just realized that it's like, been a while since I mentioned how hot Warren is, so allow me to mention it again. Warren is super hot! 

You know though, I have to put in that Stephen has amazing style. Yeah, his hair's a bit girly, and the Bret Hart sunglasses aren't doing him too many favors (it's hard to tell if I actually like them, or I just like them for reminding me of the Hitman), but overall, that boy can dress. He's got a feathered earring in his left ear, and an ear cuff midway up his right ear. He's also got piles of different silver bracelets on each arm, and in the concert footage is wearing literally the most artfully ripped t-shirt I've ever seen. Kudos, Stephen. 

Anyway, back to the video. I guess Warren was fake-skyping Stephen to get him to pick them up, since now the rest of Ratt are piling into the convertible. Somehow Bobby Blotzer gets shotgun, with the other guys hopping into the back. Well, they made the right call, as now Juan, Robbin, and Warren are sitting up on top of the backseat waving their arms around while Bobby just sits up in the front like a chump, so. Oh, no wait, now everyone else is sitting down, but Bobby is standing up and miming drumming. Now Juan's in the front, singing straight at the camera. He also has Bret Hart glasses. Dang, this is getting pretty long, isn't it. 

Okay, I'll just focus on the high points, like Stephen signing something for a girl who is wearing an amazing t-shirt which features Stephen's almost life-size face on it. We also must mention that Ozzy's back, and appears to be in drag — he's wearing lipstick and a floral housedress, standing in a garden holding a youngish girl — either Aimee or Kelly, I'm not sure based on the age. 

We also get a quick repeat of Tommy Lee and Nikki Sixx's big reveal in "Back for More," I guess they wanted to make sure they got maximum mileage out of that footage. 

Ooh, then we get a new cameo! It's Carmine Appice, hanging out backstage with the boys. And speaking of backstage, you've got to love all the backstage "getting ready" shots. These boys have a lot of makeup in there, and I don't mean the 70s KISS kind. I mean the 80s KISS kind — eye shadow, lipstick, etc.

 

The end of this video only gets more random. There's a sequence with — I'm not sure if I should call them dolls or puppets — being waved out the window of a car. One of them is definitely a Stephen puppet, the other one is hard to get a positive ID on. 

We also get an actual, new Nikki Sixx cameo, Ozzy ripping off his shirt, and another dude I don't recognize (he looks Japanese, but is not one of the guys in Loudness). 

And then when you think it can't get weirder, the video transitions from the boys singing in their convertible to suddenly being all patriotic, with pics of the Statue of Liberty and the flag. This fades into a sunset, which then (of course) turns out to be an image on Stephen's little car TV. It transitions into concert footage and then static flickers before the whole thing fades out. 

The thing that's interesting though is this song is also a bit of a sonic leftover. If you've ever heard Ratt songs that from when they're still called "Mickey Rat" (a nod to Mickey Mouse, though wouldn't Ricky Rat have made the connection more obvious?), this is more or less what they sound like. Wayyy less polished, way less glam. I mean it actually sounds like they crawled out of the cellar! 

Such is the way with this track, which though many people know it from their Ratt & Roll 8191 compilation, is from their 1983 debut EP which is notable for a) being awesome but also for b) having seriously amazing, like frame-worthy cover art (despite the fact that I'm pretty sure those are large mice, not rats). None of their other albums measure up, artwork-wise. 

The video though is from 1985, sort of filling the gap after Out of the Cellar and paving the way for the clips from Invasion of Your Privacy. 

So it actually is a leftover song, with leftover clips from other videos and just a little bit of new stuff — it's like the day after Thanksgiving! And luckily, like the day after Thanksgiving, it's actually pretty tasty. 

Iron Maiden, "Wasted Years"

In Retrospect...  

THE VIDEO Iron Maiden, "Wasted Years," Somewhere in Time, 1986, Capitol 

SAMPLE LYRIC "Sooooh-oooooh-ooooh / under-sta-a-and / don't waste your time always searching for those was-ted years! / Face uh-uppp, make your sta-a-and / and re-a-lize you're living in the gol-den years!" 

THE VERDICT Some people think this song is really cheesy, but you know me — I love me some inspirational metal. I have two reasons I wanted to talk about this video, but first, well, let's talk about the video. What happens here? 

Well, the video for "Wasted Years" is a mix of stuff — remember that Somewhere in Time shows Eddie as sort of a badass futuristic space dude, so the entire video is framed with this sort of artwork of the video being played on screens in Eddie's space ship. But that's only at the very end. For most of the video, we just see footage of the band performing more or less for each other in a dark, empty space. 

Unlike Iron Maiden's usual video staging — with, if not a real arena stage, then a fake one — here the boys are just hanging out, a la Tesla. They play the song sort of facing in toward each other, in a loose circle. That's the least interesting part of the video though. 

More interesting is all the nostalgic Iron Maiden stuff woven all through it. First, there are the old photos of the band. We see them posing in different parts of the world (Japan, Brazil, Poland), and lots of them — especially Dave Murray — wearing silly hats, making silly faces, silly poses, etc. There's even a sequence of photos of their crew members and management — it's a family affair here in this video. 

 

Also in the mix is behind-the-scenes footage of the band, some of which appears to be a photo shoot, but more generally seeming to show their hobbies. We see them all playing soccer football. Weirdly, we don't see anything to do with Bruce Dickinson and planes, but we do see him practicing archery and fencing. 

Another theme woven throughout this video is footage from Iron Maiden's other videos. They mix in brief clips of a bunch of stuff, most notably "Run to the Hills", "The Number of the Beast", "The Trooper", "2 Minutes to Midnight", and "Aces High." 

There are also bits of live footage — some of this might be from other videos, but I mostly don't recognize it. In any event, it shows off their epic stage sets to very good effect. I think my favorite is a giant, mummified Eddie shooting sparks out of his eyes as part of the Powerslave sphinx Eddie stage set. 

My very most favorite part of this video though is all the montages of Derek Riggs' artwork. These are so, so cool. You get to see the evolution of Eddie, from a Edvard Munch-inspired-looking wraith to a very stylized sort of skinless dude. I like that the montages go forward in time and sort of build up as they go, leading to a mega-montage that introduces Adrian Smith's solo. (Adrian, btw, wrote this song, but I love that despite this, Steve Harris sings along while he plays as he always does.) It's basically the Eddie from each of their singles, and to see them all together rules. 

So okay, why did I want to talk about this song? Well, we'll do the deeper one first. Lately I have really been in an introspective, reflective mood. Though you can tell obviously from this blog I am big into nostalgia, lately I feel like for the first time in my life I am really looking to the future. Until recently, I feel like I've been one of those people who's always like, "oh, this was when things were cool or my life was good or whatever," and kind of going over things like that constantly. But lately, I'm finding a shift in myself toward a more present-focused orientation. I feel like it's probably a really healthy thing. 

So anyway, yeah, while I can't relate to the parts of this song that are about being on tour (which as metal bands are always having to remind us, is just soul-suckingly hard), lately I find I can really relate to the chorus. Is it cheesy? Yes. But does a little metal motivation ever hurt? No. I'm busting out Oprah-style bitches, living my best life!

 

The other reason I thought to do this song is because of something amazing that happened to me recently. I was out shopping for clothes, which I only buy used (that's a whole other long story). 

Anyway, I was on the very last rack of t-shirts, hadn't really found much, just some stuff that was maybe okay for work, when suddenly, I found... an Iron Maiden 1982 "The Beast On Tour" t-shirt in mint vintage condition. 

You guys, when I saw that thing, it was like, you know the parts in Requiem for a Dream when the people do drugs, and they do all those quick cuts of like different stuff happening, and their pupils going all big and whatnot? It was like that. 

I mean this shirt is approximately a vintage size small (it just fits me, and I'm a pretty small girl), baseball-style tee with a tan body, camo-printed sleeves, and Eddie artwork on the front and back. The front has circular artwork of Eddie stabbing a Union Jack into a globe, and the Maiden logo. The back has the Maiden logo with circular art of Eddie leaning casually against the flag pole, and says "The Beast On Tour 1982." Nineteen-eighty-effing-two! This shirt is almost 30! 

I had seen one other shirt like this with the camo sleeves, and it was framed and hanging on a wall in a vintage store. This one, on the other hand, was $36. I bought it immediamente, practically hyperventilating I was so excited. 

To put this event in perspective, my fiance and I also bought wedding bands that day, and I'm calling people like "You're not going to believe what happened to me! I found an Iron Maiden tee from 1982!!"

I've worn it once, but I am probably going to have to mostly keep it on ice. Why? Well, because once we were home, I went online to look at similar shirts, and find out what they sell for. We couldn't find my exact one (Iron Maiden made a lot of tees back in the day), but it turns out similar ones sell for like $500 - $1,000. What?!!? 

Now I know, like my mom always says, it's only worth that much if someone will actually pay you that much much for it, and I definitely don't intend to sell it, but still. I'm pretty sure it's easily the most valuable shirt in my collection, though I haven't taken the time to actually figure this out. 

In any event, that got me on a big Maiden kick. And given that my other Maiden shirt is a 1987 "Somewhere on Tour" tee (which I bought at the Salvation Army in 2001 for 99 cents!), I wound up at this album. Talk about living in the golden years!

Ozzy Osbourne, "Crazy Babies"

Mary-Kate and Ozzy  

THE VIDEO Ozzy Osbourne, "Crazy Babies," No Rest for the Wicked, 1989, Epic 

SAMPLE LYRIC "Nobody's gonna change them, change them / they've gone over the to-o-op / nobody's gonna tame them, tame them / they're never gonnaaaa sto-o-op" 

THE VERDICT This is seriously such a weird song, even for Ozzy. Admittedly, No Rest for the Wicked is far from my favorite Ozzy album. I know I am already in the extreme minority by being a Jake E. Lee partisan, but whatever, I am. 

In any event though, "Crazy Babies" is somehow like the cornerstone of this album — the cover art even comes from the video. That said, I'm not sure why this song was even a single (not that I really like any of the singles from this album). 

Still, the song and video are really the shape of things to come for Ozzy. "Crazy Babies" is much closer to how Ozzy's going to sound from here on out. I feel like it's the bridge from "Breaking All the Rules" (which sounds for all intents and purposes like it came from The Ultimate Sin) into the Zakk Wylde era. Indeed, this is one of our first glimpses of Zakk — it's before he's gotten super-hot, he's kind of got weird bangs, but still, there he is. 

I don't know if this video is necessarily indicative of future Ozzy videos, but it does give us a preview of what are upcoming trends in heavy metal videos. One, we've got the use of this sort of Yves Klein blue backdrop (here with black and white in front of it). Give it a year or two, and this is going to start to show up everywhere, from Queensryche's "Silent Lucidity" to Alice Cooper's "Poison" to Ozzy's own "No More Tears."

 

In the performance stuff , this is also our first metal video glimpse of this shaky/shadowy camera technique (I wish I knew the word for it!) that we associate most prominently with Metallica's "Enter Sandman." You know, where you sort of see several images at once, almost like a bunch of still frames with a bit of a lag, so you see several at once. It's a camera technique I associate way more with thrash metal, but here it is with Ozzy. 

Last, there's the grainy black and white footage. This isn't entirely new, but it's worth pointing out, since you usually only see it used to convey as sense of being "backstage" or "behind the scenes," a la the grainy black and white in "Sweet Child O' Mine" or "Wanted: Dead or Alive." Dang, these guys don't often come up with new visual tropes, do they! 

It's also our first peek at the Olsen twins' grown-up style. No, just kidding, it's not Mary-Kate and Ashley. But for real, don't the two main girls in the video (not the creeper with the heavy bangs, but the other two) seriously look like MK and A? 

I mean, not so much how they looked at the time, but if you just knew what the Olsen twins look like now, wouldn't you assume when they were younger they'd have looked like this? Long, dirty hair, giant anime-style eyes, grungy, shapeless clothes? I mean these are all those girls' current signatures! 

How they came up with the concept for this video — shaky cam of Ozzy and the band mixed with the faux Olsen twins cozying up to a giant snake — we'll never know. And then it winds up as the album art! I mean I guess their other option was the creepy mask from "Miracle Man," so.

 

Still, based on that video, I'm surprised we didn't wind up with some kind of faux-church or stained glass type motif on the cover instead of Ozzy sitting around with some creepy little girls. Or yeah, like Ozzy with a bunch of pigs. Or just pigs in church. Whatever, it just seems like "Miracle Man" has more happening that seems album-cover-ish than this clip does. 

What this song is even about, we'll never know. I mean the constant repetition of "nobody gonna change them, change them" in a song about babies. I know, I know — I'm sure "babies" is more just a turn of phrase here than like, literal infants. But I'm sorry, that makes it sound like they are just walking around with fully-loaded diapers! Gee-ross. Ozzy, what were you thinking? 

Then again, that's basically what I was thinking when I picked to do this video now. I guess I've finally hit that age where I suddenly go from knowing like, one person my age with a kid to knowing, well, pretty much everyone but me. 

Well, not everyone, but a lot — it's now been like two years since I could say no one I knew was currently pregnant, and this spring in particular there has been a bumper crop of babies among my friends. So this video is dedicated to the very recently born Charlotte and Emme, the slightly less recently born Max and Tabitha, and the any-day-now baby-to-be Sam! Hopefully somebody is going to change you, change you, at least in the diaper department.

Krokus, "School's Out"

Another School Year Bites the Dust  

THE VIDEO Krokus, "School's Out," Change of Address, 1985, Arista 

SAMPLE LYRIC "Schooooool's out! For! Summah! / Schoooooool's out! For! Evahhh!" 

THE VERDICT Ohhh Alice Cooper. Why couldn't you have made a video for this song? Sure, probably not back in the day, but why not even something more recent? I'd take anything to make me avoid Krokus. 

Oh Krokus. Why do you torture me so, with your refusal to write your own songs, and your dogged determination to make mediocre singles out of great ones? Sigh. But whatever, I'll take it, because indeed, school's (nearly) out for summer! Yes, I've still got grading to do, but I taught my last class of the year on Tuesday and people, I am stoked. I love teaching, but I am so ready for some time off from it. 

This song (well, the Alice Cooper version) is always on my mind this time of year. My one year-ending tradition is every year on the last day I go to campus I wear an ultra-cheesy Juicy Couture tee that says "School's Out for Summer" in giant, flocked navy blue letters (and yeah, the tee itself is like coral pink). And that concludes more detailed personal information than I've given you all about me in probably a year or so. 

Anyway! So Alice never made a video for this song, but of course Krokus made an abominably cheesy one. Luckily though, this video's actually pretty light on the Krokus, and heavier on everything else. Possibly 'cause they didn't want us to notice that the band appears to only own like one set of rock star clothing, and Marc Storace's fugly red unitard from "Burning Up the Night" is pretty distinctive. 

So anyway, we get way more plot (or well, "plot") in this video than we do footage of the band performing on a fake stage. Krokus basically take us to visit classrooms of many lands. We start off in an empty classroom, which becomes what I think of as the U.S. public school classroom in this video. Bored looking, mostly white teenagers dressed in the uniforms of various 80s subcultures (e.g. metal kids, valley girls), being lectured to by a youngish male teacher.

 

We also get what I assume is meant to be an Arab classroom — it's all male (teacher and students), and the students are all wearing robes and, in some cases, Muslim-style headdresses. Our other international classroom is I believe meant to be either China or Japan. My guess is China though, due to the very Communist Russia-looking outfits everyone has on and the spartan classroom. 

The last place we go is the one I think of as the prep school, which could be meant to be the U.S. again or, going with their international flavor, England. I call this one the prep school because these mostly white kids, in contrast to the first group, are in uniform — white shirts with little neckties. They're being taught by an old woman who waves a ruler at them while she speaks. I have to say here, I'm really surprised Krokus didn't go with a Catholic school for this one, and a full-on nun. It just seems like their style. 

Anyway, each classroom features one student who is wearing headphones and rocking out to Krokus — a metal guy in the public school, a boy air-drumming with rulers in the Arab school, a girl with two braids in the Asian school, and a blonde girl with one braid in the prep school. It takes a thought bubble over the head of a stoner-ish looking guy rocking indoor sunglasses in the public school though to transition us into seeing Krokus perform. 

As mentioned, Krokus are basically in their usual empty stage space. Bunch of lights, implied crowd at front, not a lot going on. They're all wearing their best white pleather, save for Storace's red polyester and Fernando Von Arb, who's wearing sort of lilac purple. They do lots of synchronized guitar waving while the different kids wearing headphones sing along with the verses. 

Oh yeah, the stoner kid also gives us the weirdest moment of the video. At one point, he's staring into space, looking at a supply closet-type thing on one side of the classroom. Suddenly, a woman in a black bikini appears lounging on top of it. She smiles and winks at him, and he pulls his sunglasses down, making a shocked face. Just as quickly, she disappears, and he breaks the fourth wall, giving the camera a "Did you just see that?!" face. So random.

 

The plot of the video, such as it is, is school letting out in each of these different classrooms. Every time this happens, chaos immediately ensues, and everyone throws their papers into the air (and sometimes even pushes their desks over). In the public school classroom, they even go so far as to grab the teacher and drag him out of there. 

Is this really what school letting out is like for anyone? It definitely wasn't for me. Sometimes I think I remember it happening, but I'm really just remembering the beginning of Dazed and Confused. I dunno, maybe it's 'cause I went to private school from seventh grade on, but I don't remember people being that excited when I was in public school either. 

For the first chorus, the public school and the Asian school let out. A trio of the public school girls (one wearing a Wham! "Choose Life" shirt) walking down some stairs sing the first round of "No more pencils, no more boo-ooks." They're followed by some of their rowdier classmates, carrying their struggling teacher. 

We then cut to fans watching Krokus perform — I believe we're meant to get that the kids from these different school scenes are then there watching Krokus, though I can only pick out kids from the public school and the prep school in the crowd sequences. Guess they didn't want people to think Krokus were too down with Arabs or (assuming it's China) communists. 

Ugh, Marc Storace. He barely gets out the line "we can't even think of a word that rhymes." And this red get-up is making him look even shorter. I almost feel bad for him when he does air guitar. He's sort of like the Michael Scott of heavy metal. Well, minus the likeability. But if it ever comes up, I could totally see him being played by Steve Carell. 

Okay, for the second chorus the Arab school and the prep school let out, and for the "No more pencils" bit, we get three prep school girls. As they leave the school, they remove their little neckties, causing Von Arb to blow a kiss. Ewww. 

The other students behind them seem much more orderly. No more teacher-kidnapping. We then go to some wide shots meant to imply it's a huge crowd watching Krokus perform. Krokus, I'm unconvinced. 

In short, Krokus, you are no Y&T when it comes to making funny high school videos. This gives me the idea though — I wish I were good at this kind of thing, but I know nothing about video editing. But it would be amazing to edit together all the nonexistent 80s teen movie bits from metal videos into some kind of amazing trailer for a metal 80s teen mega-movie. Dang, that would rule. 

Like I said, I don't have the editing chops to do it myself, but if anyone's up to the challenge, I'd be happy to consult.